"When it comes to women, you're a true democrat."

The Wife and I watched Casablanca last week. Somehow, this was our first viewing of the film in nearly two years. Why this should be the case is utterly beyond me, although there is the old canard of absence making the heart grow fonder (recast in country music as "How can I miss you if you won't go away?"). I used to watch Casablanca with far greater frequency; in fact, there was a period in college, about two months long or so, when I watched the film every single Sunday evening, starting around 4:30 or so in the afternoon so it would be totally dark out by the time we reached that final confrontation on the airstrip.

Anyhow, often times when I return to a film I haven't seen in a long time, I see all the stuff anew that made me love it in the first place, and that was certainly the case with Casablanca. There was all the old great dialogue; there was the wonderful Max Steiner score (all the more remarkable for the fact that Steiner hated "As Time Goes By", and still composed one of the enduring film scores around it); there was what I hold to be the greatest closeup in cinema history (the long closeup of Ingrid Bergman's face as she listens to Sam play "As Time Goes By"); there was the wit and the humor and all the rest of it.

But when I return to films long left unwatched, that also tends to be when I find something new, or rather a new way to appreciate something old. In the case of Casablanca I realized something about halfway through: the film's complete lack of artifice. Almost nothing in the film seems fake.

Part of this, I'm sure, is the film's black and white composition, which serves to heighten all of the contrasts in the costumes, highlight the smokiness of Rick's Café Americain and the sultriness of North Africa. The sets all look perfect as well. But where the true lack of artifice can be seen is in the background performances of the crowds and the extras. This is no small thing, because even great directors like Steven Spielberg can fumble crowd shots. Consider the climactic scene of Schindler's List, when the Jews are gathered to watch as Oskar Schindler departs. As the car departs, the crowd moves as one after it, so much in unison that one senses the director sitting outside of the shot, giving them the cue to do so. This kind of thing can't be found in Casablanca at all. Nearly every shot in this film seems genuine and almost unstaged. That's what I mean by lack of artifice.